Talk:A baby
Baby is not the baby's name! It's a baby! -- Peter (talk) 18:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC) :I agree. It's not like it's Aloysius T. Baby. This is a'' baby, not ''the baby. I vote for moving it back to "A baby". -- Danny (talk) 18:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC) ::Well, we use capitals on all other pages, from The Eel to Sesame Street Books. I'm fine with moving it back if that's the case, but if so, should Safari Animal Tracker be moved to Safari animal tracker and so on? ::Either way, I'm glad "a baby" now has a page. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 18:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC) :::Plus, it's really not "a baby," but multiple babies enacting the role of "a baby." -- Andrew Leal (talk) 18:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC) ::::We don't use capitals on all the pages. We use capitals for titles, character names and categories -- but when we're talking about generic things, we sometimes use lowercase. The examples I can think of are merchandise: Stormin' Norman disco jackets, Tomy Muppet wind-up toys, Muppet Prestofix kits. We're not as consistent about this as I think we should be, but there are non-capital pages. Plus, "A baby" is funnier. -- Danny (talk) 18:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC) :::::That's the point, then. Should Live Animals Who Have Appeared on The Muppet Show be lowercased? How about Bert's Goldfish? -- Andrew Leal (talk) 19:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC) ::::::We treat lists on the wiki as if their titles are the titles of books. I think that's appropriate. I think if Bert's goldfish is descriptive rather than a name, then yeah, I wouldn't have a problem with "Bert's goldfish" at all. -- Danny (talk) 19:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC) :::::::But really, "A Baby" could become a list, if anyone is anxious, and in fact multiple babies have appeared in certain episodes (Friends, and I think Games, and others). I'm really not arguing about this page (go ahead and move it, I agree it's funny) so much as our approach in general. Awhile back, Nick created a whole slew of inexplicably lower-cased book titles. Clearly that's wrong, true, but it's nice to have some clear discussion of what merits capitals and what doesn't. And since we're treating "a baby" as a character, what makes the tot different from Japanese Storyteller, Video Rental Clerk, or Cowboy With a Drawl (which, in fact as renamed by Dean, shouldn't have "with" capitalized either). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 19:11, 1 September 2006 (UTC) ::::::::Well, it very well may be that Unnamed Characters like The Eel should actually be classified under The eel instead. Shall we move this discussion to ? -- Peter (talk) 19:13, 1 September 2006 (UTC) :::::::::I think there's a difference between "The Eel" and "A baby". "The" means it should be capitalized; "A" means it shouldn't. If you want to make it a Special:Community discussion, that's cool. -- Danny (talk) 19:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC) ::::::::::You're right. The is different from a''. -- Peter (talk) 19:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC) :::::::::::It really isn't, though. "The" is an arbitrary designation. It's not like The Newsman, where there's a source. "The Eel" and The Scientist could as easily be Eel and Scientist or "an eel." For that matter, the only time "a baby" is addressed as such is in the question. Otherwise, he/she/they are simply "Baby." And I'm having way too much fun arguing about this. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 19:19, 1 September 2006 (UTC) ::::::::::::In that case, I think it should be "Eel" instead of "The Eel". We do that with Frog. -- Danny (talk) 19:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC) :::::::::::::In my opinion, "The" denotes that there's only one of that thing (i.e. if The Eel links to one specific eel versus Eel linking to an article about the species), while "A" denotes that it's one of many. So I'd say that "The ___" should be capitalized and "A ___" should not. — Joe (talk) 19:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC) ::::::::::::::The thing is, why use "The" at all? There's only one eel, true, but there's also only one Banana, recycled again and again, and so on. Anyway, I've already renamed them. Though I like the point about one among many, I'm not sure I'd want to see it used. Like I said earlier, at this point, I'm fine with "A baby," but I'd hate to start seeing certain users create such pages as '''A fat bird' or a llama and so on. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 19:39, 1 September 2006 (UTC) I agree; I think the llama would be listed as "Llama", not "The Llama". -- Danny (talk) 21:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)